5 Quotes on why Art and Fiction matter so much

Of all the amazing work Nick Nocturne is doing on his NightMind channel, "House of Leaves: Explored" is my absolute favorite. Not just because the novel "House of Leaves" by Mark Z. Danielewski is one of the most fascinating works of modern fiction and art, but also because Nick does an amazing job not just analyzing the novel but also inspiring artists and creators to take seriously their work. After all, the videos of "House of Leaves: Explored" are part of the very few videos that I watch every 6 months. In particular, I love the 5 quotes about art and fiction that he shares near the end. I saved and read them regularly to find inspiration. Here they are, in no special order.

Quote 1

The artist must raise everything to a higher level: he is like a pump; inside him is a great pipe reaching down into the bowels of things, the deepest layers. He sucks up what was pooled beneath the surface and brings it forth into the sunlight in giant sprays.

Gustave Flaubert

Quote 2

Art shows us how to get through and transcend pain, and a close reading of any tragic work will allow the intelligent reader to see how and why the tragedy took place and how he, personally, need not make those mistakes... great art is cathartic; it is always moral. It is the task of the writer to think his way through all the temporal, private, petty, headline-tormented confusion of his life, and connect with deeper rhythms, either through a conscious exploration of art, history, music, literature, or through personal discipline and meditation.

Joyce Carol Oates

Quote 3

A writer does not write to tell a reader his pain; A writer writes to let a reader know he understands their pain.

Anonymous

Quote 4

The meaning of fiction is... the grand and glorious leap we make, both as we speak and as we listen, from our own lives to those of others. The meaning of fiction is empathy, our ability to recognize ourselves in others, others in ourselves. The teller of stories, the writer of fiction, wears a mask that possesses, if the writer has done his job well, the remarkable power to reveal the writer's true face, the writer's truest features. And the listener, the reader of fiction, wears his own mask, a mask that the story strips away to reveal what is nothing less than a startling and miraculous transformation: for that face beneath that mask has become the face of human tragedy and struggle and triumph and grace. It is a face, lo and behold, much like that of fiction's characters, a face precisely like that of the writer's. It is the face of empathy, a face always ready to be reshaped, reconfigured, and ultimately transformed.

Saul Bellow

Quote 5

Fiction is the truth inside the lie

Stephen King